As companies today become more accustomed to storing important company information on their data network, the value of these networks and the data they store continues to grow. In fact, many companies now identify the data stored on their computer network as their most valuable corporate asset. Backing up data is a necessity so when important images, spreadsheets, MP3s, financial documents, and emails are lost, users are able to easily restore them with their backup copy on the destination folder.
Conventional systems back up files by copying from a source folder to a destination folder. Files are changed by the user only on the source folder, with changes sent to the destination folder for backup. Traditional backup systems talk to a central server which has a catalog of what has been backed up. Most backup systems operate by having the network administrator identify a time of day during which little or no network activity occurs. During this time the network administrator turns the network over to a backup system and the data files stored on the computer network are backed up, file by file, to a long term storage medium, such as a tape backup system. Typically the network administrator will back up once a week, or even once a day, to ensure that the backup files are current.
Although such a backup process may work well to create a copy of the data stored on the network, it is a time consuming and labor intensive process. Moreover, it is a cumbersome process that often is inappropriate in many environments. For example, as more and more computer networks begin to operate twenty-four hours a day seven days week, it is continuously more difficult for the system administrator to identify a block of time during which the majority of network resources may be turned over to the backup procedure. Moreover, as computerized network systems begin to store more information as well as information that changes regularly during the course of the work day, the value of a backup system which only backups once a week or once a day is fairly reduced.